Today I caught a piece of a FOX NEWS "Cashin' In" segment with the usual contributor Jonathan Hoenig and others. They spoke of how the current polls show a few percent drop in "Americans who care about climate change". This was hailed as "Great for the economy!" in the usual Fox News way.
In Hoenigs's view, and the Ayn Rand Objectivist (Libertarian) views that he subscribes to, it appears that there is NO WAY that human technology could ever be harmful. It is sheer folly that the combustion of 6,000,000,000 tonnes of fossilized carbon per year for purposes of energy production could ever make a change in the atmosphere! It's sheer folly that synthetic chemicals (such as brominated fire retardants) could ever be harmful! Or that the genetic modification of organisms to make them do as we desire could ever come with negative consequences!
In the Objectivist philosophy, environmentalists are completely against industrial civilization. Their web site speaks of environmentalists wanting a world without lights, heating, or else any other type of energy or natural resource consumption.
While I am not going to deny that there may be some "environmentalists" in the world who are slightly misinformed and are promoting such "ideals", it is safe to say that the majority are for policies which will result in a future where the consumption of resources will be brought to a sustainable level, where people are actually able to enjoy life (not having to work 80 hours a week to pay for their vacation home), and where true freedom will be through the disconnection from the brainless consumer culture.
But - The Ayn Rand Institute promotes a "complete rejection of environmentalism". This includes reducing carbon dioxide emissions or anything else which is currently overloading the biogeochemical system.
Objectivism and Environmentalism...
...don't appear to mix!
- They [the objectivists] talk as if the ONLY sources of energy in the world are fossil and nuclear sources.
- They talk as if there is no safer substitute to present industrial chemicals and processes. The "hands-off" mentality of no environmental regulations on industry would likely mean that we would still have lead in our house paint and in our gasoline, and that industry would still be disposing of its hazardous waste in 55 gallon drums buried in trenches. I do not believe that the general population would condemn these practices - look at how many people are sick from environmental contamination or occupational hazards because they "did not know it was harmful". With the climate change issue of today, it is an odorless, colorless, non-toxic gas that is causing the world distress. It takes a little bit more than the uneducated public to get behind this problem. If it is not smacking us in the face, we tend to ignore it.
- In their eyes, "progress" means business as usual - GROWTH. There's no inkling to the fact that "progress" means a whole lot more than "making money at whatever cost". Progress means creating a better world, one that is clean, safe, peaceful, and more enjoyable. Real progress is more quality rather than more quantity.
- The "infinite growth" / consumerism economy is not sustainable. There's a reason that the environmental movement is trying to get the world to see things beyond the "Work, Buy, Consume, Die" cycle of current Western society.
- The objectivism crew advocates powering the infinite growth consumerism economy with finite fossil fuels such as Alaskan oil and West Virginia coal. Hmmm...running something that is seen as "infinite" on a fuel that is finite? How does that work? It cannot even be stated as to make economic sense in the current system, as they advocate "non-conventional" oil resources which take huge amounts of capital and ongoing investments in order to get the energy-bearing substances into a usable form - even putting the huge ecological costs of these resources aside.
Now, this is not at all to say that Objectivism is complete nonsense ( check out their web site - aynrand.org for details
). But, the delusion that growth and wild consumption can continue unbounded (and that we should be actively perpetuating this philosophy - which nearly every government in the world is doing! ) needs to be seriously reviewed.